and cried

Like a spirit lost

By the grey storm-wind tost.

Consider the way she had to go,

Think of the hungry snare,

The net she herself had woven,

Aware or unaware,

Of the dancing feet grown still,

The blinded eyes —

Queens should be cold and wise,

And she loved little things,

Parrots

And red-legged partridges

And the golden fishes of the Duc de Guise

And the pigeon with the blue ruff

She had from Monsieur d’Elboeuf.

Мэрион Ангус (1865–1946)

О несчастная королева! (Плач по Марии Стюарт)

Была в песнях, в танцах искусна

И в науке влюбленных

При дворе отравленных роз

И платков надушенных,

Отдала бледному принцу

Ручку прекрасную

За корону трехчастную[78] —

Ей нравились собачки

И попугаи,

И куропатки сизые,

И золотые рыбки де Гиза,

И голубóк с опереньем лиловым

(Подарен мсье д’Эльбёфом[79]).

Суровый Джон Нокс[80] ей не друг;

У нее так ласкова речь —

Уж точно, орудие сатаны,

Чтоб душу в сети завлечь:

«Неужто изящный стан,

Неужто мой лик пригожий

Противствуют воле Божьей,

Чья Премудрость не для каприза

Сотворила рыбок де Гиза?»

Верхом на коне в Лидсдейле[81]

Пела: «Позволь в твои воды войти[82],

А если нужна тебе жертва —

Сгуби на обратном пути!»,

А птица в холмах рыдала,

Словно призрак загробный,

Несомый бурею злобной.

О смерти ее подумайте,

Об убийстве жестоком,

О сети, ею сплетенной

Нарочно иль ненароком,

О ножках, лишенных движенья,

О глазах ослепленных —

Много королев умудренных,

А ей нравились вещицы

И попугаи,

И куропатки сизые,

И золотые рыбки де Гиза,

И голубóк с опереньем лиловым

(Подарен мсье д’Эльбёфом).

Перевод А. Серебренникова

Richard Le Gallienne (1866–1947)

A New Ballade of Last Year’s Snow

Villon, in French none may forget,

“What has become of last year’s snow?”

You asked — nor is there answer yet;

And where did those dead ladies go

With bosoms worn exceeding low.

With hair of gold, and lips of red?

It drifted — would you really know —

Flake after flake upon my head.

Ah! suns may rise and suns may set,

Catullus told us long ago.

But, howsoe’er we fume and fret.

The wind takes all our mortal show.

And youth hath scarcely time to blow

In Life’s brief garden, ere ‘tis fled —

Yet why so early settle so

Flake after flake upon my head?

But yesterday my locks were jet.

Rival of raven and of crow.

Yet, while I dined with Juliet,

And passed the wine-cup to and fro.

For all the glory and the glow.

The gray was creeping thread by thread.

Falling, a soft insidious foe.

Flake after flake upon my head.

Envoi

Ah! Prince, the sorry overthrow!

A man might just as well be dead,

When once the years begin to sow

Flake after flake upon his head.

Ballade of the Junkman

Upon the summer afternoon,

Wafted across the orchard trees,

There comes a ghostly travelling tune,

Blent with the sleepy drone of bees;

Elfin, aёrial it is.

Like shaken bells of silver rain.

And creepy as old melodies—

The junk-man’s coming down the lane.

The ancient hat, the wornout shoon,

The broken-hearted fineries.

The yellowed news, dead as the moon.

The rust, the rubbish, and the lees.

The tarnished trophy, gallantries

Gone to the moth — this clouded cane!

This buckle brave! — for such as these

The junk-man’s coming down the lane.

O thou that wooest deep in June,

Hearken! and thou so fain to seize

Joy, and to hoard it, late and soon.

Thou lord of many locks and keys.

Thick lies the dust — though no man sees —

Upon thy dream; Time sees it plain

On the bright wings, long ere it flies:

The junk-man’s coming down the lane.

Envoi

Prince, ’tis a thought our veins to freeze:

Time doth all hallowed things profane,

And toss about the centuries —

The junk-man’s coming down the lane.

Ballade to A Departing God

God of the Wine List, roseate lord,

And is it really then good-by?

Of Prohibitionists abhorred.

Must thou in sorry sooth then die,

(O fatal morning of July!)

Nor aught hold back the threatened hour

That shrinks thy purple clusters dry?

Say not good-by — but au revoir!

For the last time the wine is poured,

For the last toast the glass raised high.

And henceforth round the wintry board,

As dumb as fish, we’ll sit and sigh,

And eat our Puritanic pie,

And dream of suppers gone before.

With flying wit and words that fly—

Say not good-by — but an revoir!

Twas on thy wings the poet soared,

And Sorrow fled when thou wentst by,

And, when we said "Here’s looking toward".